Samuel Beckett Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• Dear incomprehension, it's thanks to you I'll be myself, in the end.

  Samuel Beckett

  Thanks, Ends, Dear

  Samuel Beckett (2012). “The Unnamable”, p.34, Faber & Faber

  87 Copy quote

• The Tuesday scowls, the Wednesday growls, the Thursday curses, the Friday howls, the Saturday snores, the Sunday yawns, the Monday morns, the Monday morns. The whacks, the moans, the cracks, the groans, the welts, the squeaks, the belts, the shrieks, the pricks, the prayers, the kicks, the tears, the skelps, and the yelps.

  Samuel Beckett

  Friday, Monday, Prayer

  Samuel Beckett (2009). “Watt”, p.37, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  38 Copy quote

• I am interested in the shape of ideas even if I do not believe in them. There is a wonderful sentence in Augustine . . . "Do not despair: one of the thieves was saved; do not presume: one of the thieves was damned." That sentence had a wonderful shape. It is the shape that matters.

  Samuel Beckett

  Believe, Ideas, Despair

  4 Copy quote

• That's the mistake I made, one of the mistakes, to have wanted a story for myself, whereas life alone is enough.

  Samuel Beckett

  Mistake, Stories, Enough

  Samuel Beckett (1967). “Stories & Texts for Nothing”, p.93, Grove Press

  14 Copy quote

• To restore silence is the role of objects.

  Samuel Beckett

  Silence, Roles, Silence Is

  Samuel Beckett (2007). “Molloy”, p.13, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  38 Copy quote

• Art has nothing to do with clarity, does not dabble in the clear and does not make clear

  Samuel Beckett

  Art, Doe, Clarity

  Samuel Beckett, Ruby Cohn (1983). “Disjecta: miscellaneous writings and a dramatic fragment”, Riverrun Pr

  34 Copy quote

• Vladimir: Did I ever leave you? Estragon: You let me go.

  Samuel Beckett

  Let Me Go, You Let Me Go, Let Me

  Samuel Beckett (2012). “The Complete Dramatic Works of Samuel Beckett”, p.51, Faber & Faber

  50 Copy quote

• There's never an end for the sea.

  Samuel Beckett

  Sea, Ends

  221 Copy quote

• In my head there are several windows, that I do know, but perhaps it is always the same one, open variously on the parading universe.

  Samuel Beckett

  Window, Knows, Universe

  Samuel Beckett (2007). “I Can't Go On, I'll Go On: A Samuel Beckett Reader”, p.276, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  33 Copy quote

• Reality, whether approached imaginatively or empirically, remains a surface, hermetic.

  Samuel Beckett

  Reality, Surface, Realism

  Samuel Beckett (1970). “The collected works of Samuel Beckett”

  19 Copy quote

• To have been always what I am - and so changed from what I was.

  Samuel Beckett

  Change, Changed, Has Beens

  Samuel Beckett (2013). “Happy Days: A Play in Two Acts”, p.56, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  28 Copy quote

• But I was not made for the great light that devours, a dim lamp was all I had been given, and patience without end, to shine it on the empty shadows.

  Samuel Beckett

  Light, Shining, Shadow

  Samuel Beckett (2007). “Molloy”, p.113, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  21 Copy quote

• The whisky bears a grudge against the decanter.

  Samuel Beckett

  Bears, Grudge, Whisky

  Samuel Beckett (1931). “Proust”

  26 Copy quote

• Yes, in my life, since we must call it so, there were three things, the inability to speak, the inability to be silent, and solitude, that’s what I’ve had to make the best of.

  Samuel Beckett

  Use It Or Lose It, Solitude, Three Things

  Samuel Beckett (2009). “Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable”, p.389, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  22 Copy quote

• He who has waited long enough, will wait forever. And there comes the hour when nothing more can happen and nobody more can come and all is ended but the waiting that knows itself in vain.

  Samuel Beckett

  Long, Waiting, Forever

  Samuel Beckett (1959). “Molloy”, John Calder Pub Ltd

  44 Copy quote

• Don't touch me! Don't question me! Don't speak to me! Stay with me!

  Samuel Beckett

  Waiting For Godot, Speak, Stay With Me

  Samuel Beckett (2007). “I Can't Go On, I'll Go On: A Samuel Beckett Reader”, p.412, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  21 Copy quote

• Friendship, according to Proust, is the negation of that irremediable solitude to which every human being is condemned.

  Samuel Beckett

  Solitude, Proust, Negation

  Samuel Beckett (1931). “Proust”

  13 Copy quote

• Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that… Yes, yes, it's the most comical thing in the world. And we laugh, we laugh, with a will, in the beginning. But it's always the same thing. Yes, it's like the funny story we have heard too often, we still find it funny, but we don't laugh any more.

  Samuel Beckett

  Laughing, Stories, World

  Samuel Beckett (2009). “Endgame and Act Without Words”, p.26, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  44 Copy quote

• It was the only way to progress, to stop.

  Samuel Beckett

  Progress, Way

  Samuel Beckett (2007). “I Can't Go On, I'll Go On: A Samuel Beckett Reader”, p.305, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  8 Copy quote

• ...you must say words, as long as there are any, until they find me, until they say me, strange pain, strange sin, you must go on, perhaps it's done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on

  Samuel Beckett

  Pain, Doors, Long

  The Unnamable (1959)

  40 Copy quote

• We spend our life, it's ours, trying to bring together in the same instant a ray of sunshine and a free bench

  Samuel Beckett

  Sunshine, Trying, Together

  Samuel Beckett (1995). “The Complete Short Prose, 1929-1989”, p.111, Grove Press

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• The confusion is not my invention. We cannot listen to a conversation for five minutes without being aware of the confusion. It is all around us and our only chance now is to let it in. The only chance of renovation is to open our eyes and see the mess. It is not a mess you can make sense of.

  Samuel Beckett

  Eye, Confusion, Chance

  12 Copy quote

• Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. Yes, yes, it's the most comical thing in the world.

  Samuel Beckett

  World, Unhappiness, Grants

  Samuel Beckett (2009). “Endgame and Act Without Words”, p.26, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  54 Copy quote

• That double-headed monster of damnation and salvation--Time.

  Samuel Beckett

  Time, Monsters, Damnation

  Samuel Beckett (2007). “I Can't Go On, I'll Go On: A Samuel Beckett Reader”, p.461, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  20 Copy quote

• Humbly to ask a favour of people who are on the point of knocking your brains out sometimes produces good results.

  Samuel Beckett

  People, Brain, Favour

  Samuel Beckett (2009). “Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable”, p.167, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  30 Copy quote

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